Highlights

The World Bank organized a learning visit to Georgia. The aim of this visit was to explore and expose the Georgian experience to the MENA region participants so they could learn from it.  This visit was part of the activities of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Community of Practice on Active Labor Market Programs (ALMPs) and Social Safety Nets (SSNs).

Objectives

The World Bank is organized a learning visit to Georgia on May 27-June 2, 2013 to visit the Social Services Agency at the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs. The objective of this activity was to learn from Georgia's social safety nets program and their poverty based targeting mechanism which utilized the Proxy Means Testing (PMT) methodology to identify beneficiaries.

This visit was part of the activities of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Community of Practice on Employment and Social Safety Nets. In particular, this learning visit to Georgia aims were to learn about: (i) the pros (and cons) of using a proxy means testing as targeting methodology; (ii) contexts where it is favorable; (iii) how it is implemented; and (iv) how data collected was verified and complaints were addressed.

The group included a total of 14 participants from 9 countries (Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, West Bank and Gaza).

Scope of the Activity

The purpose of this learning visit was to provide Social Safety Nets (SSN) practitioners from the CoP MENA with the opportunity to learn about a poverty-based targeting method, namely Proxy Means Testing (PMT), used to direct resources to poorer households. The delegation was exposed to:

• Principles of targeting and its importance in reaching specific section of the population
• Proxy means concept and how it was developed into practical tools
• Regression analysis of the various weighted factors of relevance to the Household
• The calculation of family score
• Avoiding exclusion and inclusion errors was looked at in depth
• Effective methods to reduce errors, fraud and corruption
• Design of a structured planned monitoring and evaluation mechanism.

Links to Resources

Full Agenda (English)

List of participants

Participants’ Presentations

• Human Development Department,  World Bank Comprehensiveness and flexibility:  The future direction of social safety nets in the Middle East and North Africa region (Arabic)
• Identifying families participating in the targeted social assistance system and the construction of the database. (Arabic)
• Families who received some type of assistance in the past 12 months (Arabic)
• Social Service Agency, Georgia:  Legal entity related to the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Protection (Arabic)
• Legal entity related to the Ministry of Labour, Health and Social Protection, Georgia: Social Information Management System (Arabic)
• Andrew Uroadze, Political Analysis Center in Tbilisi: The introduction of the social assistance system in Georgia (Arabic)